Call for proposals : History and memory through the test of revolt and war in Syria

Bibliotheques Paris

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Argument

Since 1970, the domination of the Assad family on Syria isn’t limited by its complete monopoly on the state apparatus and its economic assets, but extends to the rigid management of all the Syrian society and all of communication inside it. Historic, trendy and modern historical past are all a part of a political engineering scheme, with the purpose of imposing a monolithic and falsified vision of the past and its reminiscence. The 2011 revolution not solely provoked political and social upheaval, but in addition created a radical rupture with the normal discourse and semantic rules that had been imposed tillthen. A number of strategies of expression and writing, in the streets, in digital sphere or inside the spaces of cultural manufacturing reshaped the brand new norms of self-consciousness and gave a new approach of defining their relationship to the world, in Syria and later, in exile. The revolution opened new prospects to reappropriate and redefine the past in multiple methods, starting from nationwide to local history, while being itself within the heart of an intense narrative and memorial battle.

This symposium aims to convey together anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists and historians to conduct acommon dialogue on these acts of “storytelling” of oneself, one’s family, one’s hometown, the revolution and the warwhilst also analyzing occasions that occurred lately, as well as additional in time, made attainable by the 2011 upheaval. The speakers are inspired to shed light on the permanence of these narratives, their transformation and their reconfiguration since 2011. We want to discover three thematics inside our reflection, whilst also questioning the renewed relationship between researchers and their sources and methods.

  1. Taming the past to self-discipline the current: official historic discourse and its position in the nationwide area

The longstanding historical narrative that is fastened in the Syrian public area is concurrently because of the continued interventions from the Assad regime as well as a common inertia linked to the Syrian nation-state structural institution. By revealing, emphasising or hiding details, places or actors perceived as main or minor, this is the tactic that shapesauthorised discourse, and contributes to build physical, social and economic areas. The individuals’s adhesion, whether by sincerity or façade, to this framework is likely one of the regime’s supporting pillars. Because of this, specific attention shall be delivered to the idea of denial, deletion or distortion of specific historic, social or spiritual details, and the semantic value that a important evaluation of those information might convey. Subsequently will probably be essential to question to what extent these pressured narratives, omnipresent in the public area and day by day lives of odd citizens, might have contributed to the protests, either explicitor implicit, before and after 2011.

  1. The 2011 revolution: when historical past echoes

Whilst the revolution imposes itself as a telling moment of the rewriting of historic narratives and of the invention frameworks to precise oneself, we will look at the methods used since 2011 to contest the official historic narrative, while also focusing on the reappropriation and reactualisation of historical past and common reminiscence. Which historical references are subject to distortion and reappropriation? But in addition, how within the context of the redaction of those new narratives are figures, episodes, historical, historic or new events forgotten or deleted? The tendency to deliver up key pivotal tales and figures since 2011 in several Syrian areas also deserves a reflection on the political and historiographic challenges of rising localisms and regionalisms. The reflection may even give attention to the ways in which the revolutionary event comes into line with different occasions in Syrian historical past. How are the protagonists of the revolution and rivals working on building symmetries between previous revolts or destroying them?

  1. Types and challenges of reappropriating narratives and reminiscences

The revolution and the next battle in Syria created a large number of documents and traces produced by the protagonists themselves. Because the very first demonstrations, the act of testimony and the fear of building information was at the coronary heart of the preoccupations of a large number of those that took half in them. The occupation of public areas when potential, the occupation of latest spaces notably in digital spheres, inventive, cultural and militant, lead to mass production of scattered narratives that can be trying to look at. What are their types, roles, and how are they disseminated and acquired ? How do they evolve by means of time and exile ? To what extent can they contribute at this time to put in writing history in a “post-war” context, enough to the regime’s rehabilitation attempts, and deletion of its crimes.

Submit a communication

Communication proposals (title and abstract of 500 phrases in French or English) are anticipated by the 10th& of November 2022 and must be sent to the scientific committee of the symposium:

Journey and lodging costs might be coated by the organisers of the Symposium for the audio system.

Sensible info

  • Deadline for submission of abstracts: November 10th, 2022.
  • Convention venue : Ifpo Beirut
  • Dates: 25-27 January 2023
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